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Correlation of Age and Histopathological Features in Children with Retinoblastoma 1. Seema Kashyap¹ ¹Ocular Pathology Services, DR R P Centre, AIIMS, New Delhi, India Purpose: Retinoblastoma is the most common intraocular childhood tumour. Children with bilateral retinoblastomas are known to present earlier than those with unilateral tumors. We analyzed relationship between tumor differentiation, age at diagnosis and presence of high risk histopathological features in eyes enucleated as primary treatment for advanced intraocular retinoblastoma in Indian children. Method: Retrospective analysis of laboratory records of retinoblastoma cases enucleated as a primary treatment over a nine year period from January 2000 to December 2008 for advanced intraocular retinoblastoma. Tumor differentiation, age at diagnosis and high risk histopathological features were analyzed and correlated. Results: There were a total of 547 eyes, of which 108(19.7%) had well differentiated (WD) and 439 (80.2%) had poorly differentiated (PD) tumors. The average age of diagnosis in children with WD tumors was 1.73±1.95 years while in those with PD tumors was 2.96±1.83 years. Statistically the difference was highly significant (p<0.0005). Children with unilateral WD tumors (1.93±2.30) were diagnosed at an earlier age than those with unilateral PD tumors (3.18±2.16) and bilateral WD tumors (1.39±1.12) were diagnosed earlier than bilateral PD tumors (2.37±1.53). In WD tumors, more than one high risk histopathological feature was present in 16.7% cases as compared to 34.2% in PD tumors, this difference was statistically significant (p=0.0004). Conclusion: Poorly differentiated retinoblastomas present later than well differentiated tumors and are associated with more high risk histopathological features, irrespective of laterality. This finding if correlated with a long term follow up may help in a better understanding of progression of retinoblastoma. |
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